More Caucasus

In the first part of Imperium, Ryszard Kapuściński travels to the Transcaucasian republics where he finds a colourful patchwork of people, religions and languages - all challenging the received image of the Soviet union as one single grey monolithic structure. While the contrast may have been even starker in the 1960s, I would still argue that present-day Yerevan or Tbilisi offers something unlike anywhere else in the former Eastern Bloc.

One morning, sitting in the green parks of Yerevan, I searched for words to write on a postcard. Looking around, I realised that it felt like being suspended somewhere between Tolkien’s Rivendell and a junkyard. The scene grew even more dramatic whenever I caught a glimpse of the 5,137-metre-high stratovolcano Mount Ararat hovering on the horizon.

As for the people, time was far too short to say anything meaningful. Perhaps only this: that Yerevan seemed on par with Madrid when it came to late nights out, and that history here remains far too alive to be turned into ironic reference. Visiting the State Museum of Armenian History, Lina and I were guided past hundreds of traditional carpets, yet not allowed into the garden where a beheaded bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin is said to be taking an eternal nap next to a statue of Catherine the Great.